With ammo going thru the roof & scarce its sad you guys & gals dont see the beauty of the 22. It will protect you as good as any pistol or revolver, ammo is still cheap so you can practice for cheap.

If you dont think a 22 has power shoot a few rounds thru a fat phone book it will zip straight thru with a nasty exit hole.

This post is not meant to start a big problem with all the 1911 boys or the 10 mm or 40 S&W crowd , its that I have been around guns all my life & for the most part I never was without a 22 snubby. Sure I have a Colt Cobra & a Glock but, to be honest, with my 317 S&W I carry it almost daily. I have practiced so much I can point & shoot without really aiming & on a paper plate takes all 8 rounds with a nice group at 15'. I shoot mostly stingers but some other ammo also but them stingers seem to just have the power you can see & feel .........

Last edited by JohnKSa; December 3, 2009 at 10:45 PM.
Reason: Added punctuation & line breaks.

What is the objective of using a firearm for self defense? Answer, to eliminate the threat. So with that in mind, do you really think your Smith 317 with Stingers will eliminate the threat as quickly as a 9mm, 40 S&W, 45ACP, or 357 mag?

I am a person generally comfortable with carrying a 22 for self defense. But I know that the caliber is no 38spl or 9mm. Otherwise, the US Army would use it for war time. It has its limitations which I accept. But you need to be aware of its limitations for self defensive use.

Added: Check out CCI Velocitors. They have great penetration if you want a hollow point or stick with HV solids and CCI's are probably the most reliable overall for rimfires.

Dont ever underestimate the penatration power of a 22. When I was elk and deer guiding I wasnt allowed to carry anything but a 22 pistol. I cant count how many wounded deer, elk, and antelope I finished off using a pre war Colt Woodsman. A penatration test was done on 18 lb frozen turkeys wrapped in 9 layers of clothing at ranges up to 300 yards. Most penatrated completely. While I have noticed poor shock effect I never noticed poor penatration, so as long as a good placement was made it was instant death.

I think the .22 is a great caliber for self defense if all the bad guys were mini me.But because the real world bad guys are a tad bigger than that i prefer something a bit bigger.
Don't get me wrong,.22 is a decent round if that's all you can afford.but i think it would take more than one round to put down an assailant,a 9mm or greater
is better suited for a 1 shot and down scenario.

were you shooting frozen and wrapped 18 pound turkeys at 300 yards with a Colt Woodsman? And getting complete penetration? I'd like to see that demonstration.

I get a lot of enjoyment out of shooting 22lr. It certainly has its place. Jimmyjohnsonjr, I don't see how you conclude we don't appreciated it. Yes the ammo is cheap and so is the ammo I reload in 9mm and 45acp. I shoot a fair amount of that too.

Well for enjoyment 22 shooting has certainly picked up at our rifle range as I see lots of people shooting them when I'm there. I also have started shooting a lot more 22 with my S&W Model K22 with 6 inch barrel. It's a blast to be able to shoot as much as you want for as long as you want for less then $16 for 550 shots.

That said my defensive weapon for carry is a Sig P228 9mm and my home defense weapon is a P226 in 40 SW.

I wish I could reload & would but where I am now there is just no room to do it , like I said I didnt want to start a fight I'm retired on a fixed pension ammo is expensive & hard to get when it started I stocked up so I have plenty ....I also stocked up on 22 so I'm set I also treated to a S&W 317 I slicked it up myself & have put lots of ammo thru it also sent it back to S&W they returned it all rebuilt like new no charges at all got it back in 2 weeks , they were nice & friendly & yes while expensive ...I love it at 10 oz its a honey Fl is hot & shorts are worn most days .... all these years & I have not & dont want to shoot anyone but 8 stingers will stop any mutt so I feel great with it my pocket .... in my years I have seen what a 22 can do I just feel for some people a 22 is fine ! some of these little 380 are not for me I tried the LCP & didnt like it I just couldnt get a good grip it was nice & worked fine but it wasnt for me plus everyone said 380 has all dissapeared ? how can you practice with no ammo someone at the flea market had a few boxes he wanted $50 a box I just shook my head & walked on ....... stay safe & keep what ever makes you feel safe 1911 or whatever I like them but down here just too big back up north in the cold under a coat they are the ticket ...

My father used to tell me that "You dance with who you brought." Meaning I could wish for anything, but I had to use what I had with me.

If a .22 was the only thing I had, I would use it for self-defense. If I knew I was going to be in a situation where I might need a self-defense weapon, I would choose something larger.

I have seen people who have been shot with a .22 who have driven themselves to the hospital. I met one man who was shot with a 9mm in the leg and drove himself to the hospital. I also remember reading about the law enforcement guys (FBI Agents, I think, is was here on TFL) who shot some suspect with a .40 cal round and they survived.

I remember reading that some hit men would use a .22 cal pistol when they shot someone in the head. The target was killed.

Will a .22 cal do the job? Maybe. Will a larger caliber do the job better? More than likely.

But either way, you end up dancing with who you brought.

__________________
Inside Every Bright Idea Is The 50% Probability Of A Disaster Waiting To Happen.

I have reloaded for some time - but escalating component costs -and the scarce supply of Federal primers - drove me back to .22s for fun. My 5" 63 and 4" 617 are FUN. As to lethality, we nearly lost our best President of recent memory to a .22.

30-30remchester,

Just a guess here, but wouldn't it be reasonable to assume that a frozen turkey, even under nine layers of clothing, was probably pretty much dead before you shot it with your .22? As to penetration, aren't frozen turkeys usually pretty much hollow? Now, a real test would be cooked - with my mother-in-law's stuffing in it - that has the density/hardness of 20kpsi concrete - nearly as tasty, too.

Supposedly Rex Applegate claimed he carried a .22 automatic for a while under the assumption that he could hit his target more easily but that part was never put to the test. Later, he carried an older S&W pocket revolver in .38 S&W (.38 regular), carried in a very pecular under-the-arm holster. That one he did have the opportunity to use once but he thought the results were less than satisfactory. After that, the story goes, he urged S&W to chamber a small frame revolver in .38 Special, which they did.

OK, I'm going to post these questions because I do not really know much about pistols or ballistics. I'd like to change that, so here goes.

My thinking is that a person who is trained with their CCW is going to be fairly accurate first off.

Thinking that, at 25-30 yds a shooter should be able to put two to three rounds in the heart area, and two to the head rather easily.

The closer the BG the easier it is to hit the BG.

The Closer the BG the more effective the round your firing will be.

I would think at 30 yards, and this I don't know, a couple of .22 rounds to the heart will stop a BG, if not then two follow up rounds to the head will.

How much farther than 30 yards do you need an effective round? I would think in public more than 90 feet away from a BG, you cn get cover or flee.

__________________
They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety - Benjamin Franklin
Light is faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright unitl you hear them speak!
They should have stopped with "Congress shall make no Law...

Without a doubt the most fun I've had shooting has been with one of several .22 rf choices in the safe. My most recent .22 aquisition is a Kadet kit for my CZ75B .40 S&W which has exceeded my expectations.

For sure, more critters of all sizes and descriptions have bit the dust with a .22 pill than all the other calibers put together over history, whether 2, 4 or no legged. However, the most distressing thing most shooters/hunters experience is when a clean kill is not achieved, and the effort needed to track down and dispatch wounded prey is usually considerable. Matters not whether it is a groundhog, cottontail or fox, edible game or otherwise. Of course, deer or larger prey will quickly fall to a well placed .22 bullet, much more slowy if less well placed.

BUT-in terms of a defense choice, unless the .22 happens to be the only thing you brought there are obviously more capable calibers available. More available energy and potential tissue damage, all things considered is better, even when the bullet misses the COM/CNS spot.

I don't know that I would agree that .22 is underappreciated or under rated, it's just underpowered for a lot of what it might be employed against.

Something is still causing a lot of retailers to struggle to keep the ammo on the shelf. Obviously a lot of it is still being purchased and consumed, so all is well.

I can't personally see any reason to carry a SD gun chambered in a round so dismal, that you can't even hunt small deer with it. I've seen wild dogs, hogs, lots of vermin that required a few rimfire shots to kill. If a BG is armed, a 22 very well may not be enough to save your life. But, having said all that, if your comfortable with the gun, a 22 IS better than a stick.

Certainly you can kill almost any animal with a well placed shot from a 22 but your target choices are limited to head and eyeball shots on any larger game.

To shoot anywhere else than the head on larger game inevitably results in a wounded animal that suffers needlessly.

As far as a self defense weapon, I would deem it unsuitable. On a game animal you have some degree of control over the range of the engagement and often you have the luxury of time to place a shot within 3 or 4 seconds.

A human being intending on harming you is probably not going to allow you to take the time to aim a perfect head shot before they start rearranging your vital organs.

You also have the problem that if you miss and go high on a human head the small grain 22 is a lot more likely to seperate the flesh and slide off the top of the skull rather than punch through.

I can tell you from my combat experience in Afganistan that even the supposedly dreaded 5.56mm did not prove to be all that terribly fatal with a single shot unless it hit something vital.

There really isn't much difference other than powder loads between a 22 pistol and the standard M16A2 loads as far as I am concerned although I know many will disagree. I personally always thought it was a poor choice for a military caliber.

I would also suggest that if someone was 30 foot away and you were engaging them in a self defense situation you could have some legal problems unless they are firing a gun at you because the distance would seem to be to great.

Most situations that I have read about occur at distances that seem to be covered in two seconds or less and tend to be extraordinarly violent.

First off, a person trained with their weapon is going to be accurate, provided they are under no stress. But when they are threatened or otherwise in danger, that is likely to go to pieces. Not necessarily but it can certainly happen. A key point here would be the circumstances: can you see the threat coming or did you have a chance to prepare, both mentally and physically.

Second, twenty-five or thirty yards is a fair distance, depending on where you are. Indoors it will seem like more, outside, say, in the woods, it will seem like a lot less. In the open it is no distance at all. That in itself should make you think a little about handgun ranges. That also brings up the question of engagement distance, a whole 'nother topic in itself, one not discussed so much here.

But hitting a heart size target (the size of your fist) at 25 to 30 yards is extremenly problematic on a moving target. If you can get the target to hold still, so much the better, but it generally requires some education on the part of the target. The head is just as hard to hit for all the same reasons and for a .22 rimfire, it is harder than you realize. No joking, there are a lot of hard headed people out there. It is true that a hit to the head will often floor a person when nothing else will and it happens to boxers all the time. But they are likely to get right back up again. A hit to the face is something else, however, but hitting a moving target the size of your outstretched hand is not easy at 25 yards.

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